Marine Corps: So long, ‘Battle Phrogs’

Service phasing out CH-46 copters, some of which were flown in Vietnam

A member of the Miramar Marine Corps Air Station squadron that flies the retiring CH-46 helicopters secures one of the “Battle Phrogs” aboard the Peleliu amphibious assault ship at Naval Base San Diego as the squadron prepares to deploy.
— Howard Lipin / UNION-TRIBUNE

A member of the Miramar Marine Corps Air Station squadron that flies the retiring CH-46 helicopters secures one of the “Battle Phrogs” aboard the Peleliu amphibious assault ship at Naval Base San Diego as the squadron prepares to deploy.
— Howard Lipin / UNION-TRIBUNE

For four decades, the Marine Corps has relied on them to transport troops. Numbers painted on the exhaust-blackened bodies of the whirlybirds that were flown onto the Peleliu last week confirm their pedigree — four were used for combat duty in Vietnam.

The Sea Knights, as the Boeing-made helicopters are also known, are now older than the pilots who fly them, said Lt. Col. Todd J. Oneto, commanding officer of Squadron HMM-165. Thanks to “hours and hours and hours” of maintenance, they have been kept alive since the last one was made in 1971, Oneto said.

“I will be very sad to see the phrog go. I don’t think anybody anywhere will get the bang for the buck they had out of this platform,” said Oneto, who is doing his third stint with the squadron.

His fleet of CH-46s from Miramar Marine Corps Air Station left with the flagship Peleliu in the wake of two other amphibious assault ships, the Dubuque and Pearl Harbor, commanded by Navy Capt. Dale Fuller.

The helicopters had been towed into place and secured to the deck, their rotors folded inward and tied down. Now they are heading to the western Pacific and Persian Gulf with a reinforced Air Combat Element of Harrier jets and other helicopters. The ships also are carrying more than 3,000 sailors and Marines from the Navy’s Amphibious Squadron 3 and the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit from Camp Pendleton.

When the deployment ends, some of the Sea Knights will fly to the boneyard. The rest will spend a few twilight years with other squadrons until the Marine Corps completes its transition to the long-awaited and controversial V-22 Osprey, a “tilt-rotor” aircraft that takes off like a helicopter and flies like a plane.

The CH-46 has been the backbone of Marine aviation since Gerry Berry, now a retired colonel, used one to fly the U.S. ambassador out of Saigon in 1975. Last month, Berry recounted the episode when that restored helicopter — Lady Ace 09 — was put on display at the Flying Leatherneck Aviation Museum at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station.

He, too, belonged to Squadron HMM-165. Once that unit completes the Peleliu mission, its colors will be folded and a newly christened group of White Knights, Squadron VMM-165, will train to fly the Osprey.

Despite the fond memories, Oneto and other longtime CH-46 pilots are embracing the Ospreys.

Col. Roy A. Osborn, commander of the Marines deploying with the Peleliu, is a CH-46 pilot who helped develop the Osprey program from 1999 to 2002 at Marine Corps headquarters in Quantico, Va.

“It is a quantum leap forward in capability,” Osborn said of the Osprey. “It far outreaches the range, speed and payload of the ’46.”

Osborn said the Osprey was designed to take a beating in combat, and its fuel capacity and cruising speed of about 288 mph — nearly twice as fast as the CH-46 — shrink the battlefield: If the bad guys are shooting, the Osprey can fly high above or far around them, and it can transport more wounded service members to hospitals than pokier predecessors.

“I hate to see the phrog go because she’s a great aircraft. Forty-plus years old and still singing. I have flown in five conflicts in that aircraft,” Osborn said. “But it is time to park it on a stick in a museum and let the V-22 take the lead.”

Critics have called the Osprey program a “widow-maker” and boondoggle. It was nearly terminated more than once, until the military approved full production in 2005.

The Government Accountability Office, the watchdog arm of Congress, reported a year ago that V-22s used in the Iraq war flew faster and farther than the helicopters they replaced. It also cited problems with de-icing equipment that could limit operations in harsh environments like Afghanistan; lack of an integrated weapons system; problems with maintenance and parts supply; decreased maneuverability on Navy ships; and cost overruns that boosted the price per Osprey to $93.4 million.

The GAO recommended that the defense secretary require an analysis of alternatives to the Osprey, but the Pentagon disagreed. Since then, the Marine Corps and Air Force, which uses the V-22 for special-forces missions, have deployed the Osprey in Afghanistan. Four people died there in April in an Air Force Osprey crash, the cause of which is under investigation.

The Osprey’s four crashes during its development claimed 30 more lives. That record is comparatively safe, Osborn said.

“We crashed over 100 ’46s in the first five years,” he said.

The Navy retired its CH-46s in 2004, switching to MH-60S Knighthawks for the aerial waltz of cargo transit at sea.

Now the joke among Marines is that something is wrong if the CH-46 isn’t leaking hydraulic fuel. The dirt holds it together, they say.

The Corps has switched all of its regular East Coast squadrons of CH-46s to Ospreys. Miramar’s first Osprey squadron, VMM-161, relinquished its helicopters last year and is training to become fully operational on the tilt-rotors.

By the time HMM-165 returns from the Peleliu deployment, it will be the fourth squadron at Miramar in the Osprey pipeline. Pilots spend eight to 10 weeks in classroom and simulator training before completing Osprey instruction in North Carolina. The transition can take six months to two years.

The 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, the umbrella aviation unit for the Marine Corps in Southern California, has four Ospreys. It expects to get at least one more each month until Camp Pendleton and Miramar are fully equipped, with as many as 10 Osprey squadrons between them.

For the CH-46 helicopter, this is the end of the line.

“There will be a lot of guys with tears in their eyes, and I will be one of them, when the final phrog flies to the boneyard,” Oneto said, chuckling. “Everybody loves what they fly.”